CITIZENS NEWS

A Colorado trial, scheduled in a Denver courtroom on Nov. 6, will consider whether 2024 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump is eligible to hold the highest office in the United States. The lawsuit, filed in September by six Colorado voters along with the watch group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), seeks to disqualify Trump from the 2024 ballot under the "insurrection clause" of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. According to Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, anyone who took an oath to support the Constitution but then "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" cannot hold public office. The plaintiffs alleged that Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his involvement in the "incited violent mob" to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, meet the criteria for disqualification. "It was Trump’s dereliction of duty – in violation of his oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution – that caused the constitutional process to stop," said attorney Eric Olson, the lawyer for the plaintiffs. (Related: Foes using 14th Amendment to try to derail Trump’s 2024 presidential bid.) The Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified after the Civil War in 1868, specifies that U.S. officials who have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution can be disqualified from future office if found to have "engaged in insurrection" or provided "aid or comfort" to insurrectionists. However, the Constitution does not specify the mechanism for enforcing this ban, and it has only been applied twice since the 1800s.

"(This lawsuit) looks to extinguish the opportunity…for millions of Coloradans – Colorado Republicans and unaffiliated voters – to be able to choose and vote for the presidential candidate they want," Trump attorney Scott Gessler said. "In fact, the leading Republican presidential candidate, and by many measures, the candidate most likely to win the presidency."